Marked
by Swing Girl At Heart
Summary: Bruce Wayne is contacted by a strange organization that seems to know everything he's kept hidden from the world, and a killer is on the loose. Can Batman stand up to powers he never thought existed?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Meeting

The hotel phone buzzed on the bedside table, startling Bruce out of his slumber. He grimaced at the clock. 10:48 PM. Yawning, he rubbed his eyes and picked up the receiver on the third ring. "Hello?"

"Good evening, Mr. Wayne," the receptionist's British-accented voice shrilled into his ear. "I realize it's quite late, but there's a young man here who says that it's important you see him right away. I wouldn't have bothered you had he not insisted that it was urgent."

"No, it's fine," Bruce replied. "What's his name?"

"Just a moment, sir." There was a pause, and then she spoke again. "He says his name is Potter, sir."

Bruce frowned. He didn't know anybody by that name. "Ok, just tell Mr. Potter I'll be down in a sec."

"Very well, sir."

Bruce hung up and quickly pulled on his spare set of clothes, comfortable jeans and a blue sweater, before heading out the door and locking the room behind him. He was in London on business for Wayne Enterprises, and taking a quick break from the duties of his dual identities to give his muscles a rest. He watched the floors count down in the elevator, and emerged into the brightly lit, somewhat busy lobby. The blonde-haired receptionist directed him across the room to a sitting area.

The stranger was sitting with his back to Bruce, holding a glass of water on the arm of the chair. He had unruly black hair, and was fidgeting quite a bit. Bruce came up behind him. "Mr., uh, Potter?" he asked.

The man stood and turned around, setting his water glass on the coffee table. Bruce raised his eyebrows as the visitor held out his hand. He was _much_ younger than he'd expected. Tall, pale-ish, with piercing green eyes and round glasses. His hair stuck out every which-way, giving him a wild and rebellious look, and a scar ran vertically down his forehead, shaped like a lightning bolt. He could have easily passed for a teenager, but the wedding ring on his finger gave him a few more years.

"Mr. Wayne," he said. He had an accent similar to Alfred's. "Harry Potter."

"What's your business with me?"

Potter didn't smile. "Why don't we sit down someplace a little more private so we can talk?"

Bruce stared uncertainly at Potter for a few moments before conceding. "Let's go to the bar."

A curt nod of the head was all the response Potter gave.

Once inside the dimly lit bar, the two men slid into a booth and a busty waitress with big hair came to take their orders. Bruce got a Scotch on the rocks. Potter ordered nothing.

"You, uh, too young to drink?" Bruce asked.

Potter gave him an icy glare. "I realize that I look like a child, Mr. Wayne. However my age has no impact on our conversation, so if you could put it aside, it'd serve both of us better."

Bruce suppressed a laugh. "Well, you certainly know how to talk. Just out of curiosity, how old _are_ you?"

Potter sighed, irritated. "Twenty-five," he stated. "And I'll have you know that I've already got a wife and two sons, so I'm more than qualified as an adult. May we move on?"

"Be my guest. What do you want to discuss?"

"Recruitment."

Bruce frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"Mr. Wayne, you are a masked vigilante in the greatest city in the world. You'd have to go to Timbuktu and back before you found someone who's never heard of Batman."

Bruce stopped short at this, but Potter continued.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Wayne. We know who you are."

"How?" was all Bruce could say.

Potter opened his mouth to answer, and snapped it shut as the waitress returned with Bruce's Scotch. Once she had disappeared, he continued. "The American branches of the Ministry are centered in Los Angeles and Gotham. There are already people working for us at Wayne Enterprises – have been for years. When Lucius Fox was fired from his job in Applied Sciences, that department was merged with Archives. Coincidentally, the Archives were presided over by a certain Adam Stewart. He's one of us. He showed Mr. Fox's records to the American Ministry when all of the borrowed equipment was recorded as going directly to you. A military bridging vehicle, memory cloth, bulletproof armour, magnetic reel gun. A six-year-old could figure it out."

"Who are you?" Bruce was starting to feel very uncomfortable.

"That can wait for now," Potter replied. "Right now, we have a problem. There is an escapee on the loose from Azkaban Prison – a psychotic by the name of Henry Fletcher. He's wanted for murder, arson and robbery, and he's not going to stop anytime soon. We've traced him as far as Gotham, but that's where the trail has disappeared. We need _you_ to help us find him."

"I've never heard of any Abkazan Prison," Bruce said dubiously.

"Azkaban," Potter corrected. "And you won't have heard of it."

"So this…Fletcher… How dangerous is he?"

"He can't be bought. He's smart. And he kills for fun."

"For fun?" Bruce asked, slightly confused. "It's a…hobby?"

Potter shook his head. "Not even close. Think of it more like an obsession."

"Ok, you've got my attention. What do I do with him once I catch him?"

"Get him into one of your jails, put him in a straitjacket, and keep him there until we come and get him."

Bruce took a deep gulp of Scotch, swirling the ice cubes around and making them clink together. "Before I agree to my part, you do yours. Who are you?"

"A member of a very widespread community that exists among you on every level of society, in every country, and almost every town on the planet. We've endured your prosecutions for centuries, and now we make up five percent of the entire world's population."

"A community of what?" Bruce pressed.

"Witches and wizards, Mr. Wayne," Potter said very seriously. "Magic-doers."

Bruce paused, unsure what to make of this. Then he laughed. "Is this some sort of secret cult from the time of Robin Hood or something?"

"This isn't a joke."

"Right, right," Bruce agreed, a huge grin on his face. "Wearing funny robes and pulling rabbits out of hats is more your thing, huh? Could you saw me in half?"

Finally fed up, Potter whipped a foot-long polished stick out from his jacket's inside pocket, pointing it straight between Bruce's eyes. "I suggest you shut that runaway gob of yours, Mr. Wayne. Or I'll do it for you."

Bruce laughed even harder. "Is that a _wand?_" he cried. "Are you going to turn me into a pumpkin?"

"Not at all," Potter replied evenly. "Just take away your voice."

"Wha-?"

Potter smirked and rested the stick on his lap and out of sight. Bruce opened his mouth to ask why he was smiling; he hadn't accomplished anything. But then, no sound came out. He tried his best to speak, but nothing happened. He screamed at the top of his lungs – no sound. "_Fix it!_" he mouthed angrily, following his demand with a long string of profanities.

All of a sudden, Bruce felt his vocal cords loosen. He coughed and tried to speak again. "What the hell did you do?" he cried, this time with sound.

"Magic," Potter said simply. "Like I said before, this is not a joke."

Bruce stared at him. Could it be that this kid wasn't crazy? "You mentioned a Ministry before."

Potter nodded. "The Ministry of Magic."

"Naturally."

"It's a...discreet branch of Parliament," Potter explained. "And I work for them."

"What exactly is it that you do, Mr. Potter?"

"If you must know, I'm an Auror."

"Auror?"

Potter gave a dry laugh. "Put it this way: Aurors are basically the SWAT units of the wizarding world."

Bruce raised his eyebrows. He was actually starting to believe that Potter may be telling the truth. "And why, if I may ask, are you an Auror at your age? Or is that the norm?"

"No, it's not the norm," Potter said.

"That how you got the scar?" asked Bruce, pointing to the kid's forehead.

Potter's face suddenly seemed to turn a little stonier. "I think that's enough for you to know for the time being." He looked through his perfectly round lenses at Bruce. Sure he was young, but the look in his eyes made Bruce feel that Potter had already experienced much more of the world than Bruce ever would, Batman or no.

Potter held out his hand. Bruce shook it, and the boy said, "You'll be contacted."

With that, there was a slight _pop, _and Bruce was sitting alone in an empty bar.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Number Twelve

Bruce was sure he'd go insane if they kept him in the conference room one minute longer. All he could think about as he filed out the door with the rest of the businessmen was that he needed some fresh air and a cup of coffee. He hadn't slept well the night before, and he couldn't get his strange conversation in the bar out of his head. In his mind, he had bitterly dubbed Mr. Potter the Vanishing Nut, and tried his hardest to find excuses that would make the experience realistic. Unfortunately, as soon as he came up with an excuse, a contradiction would pop up with it. That it'd been a dream (he'd paid for his drink and the next morning his wallet had been missing five pounds), that Potter was really just an eccentric cult member (what kind of a cult would have access to Wayne Enterprises?), that he was playing a prank (didn't explain how he took Bruce's voice away using an innocent-looking stick or how he disappeared into thin air, not to mention how he knew of Bruce's other identity and all that about the inner workings of Wayne Enterprises), or maybe that he really was just a Vanishing Nut (which was a contradiction in itself because whatever he was being nutty about was exactly what made him vanish).

Bruce's head hurt.

When he returned to the Ritz that afternoon, he flopped down onto his bed still in his suit, letting out a relieved sigh. Oh, the pleasures money could buy.

Bruce was startled at a banging on the window. Frowning, he stood up again and pulled open the curtains. The view was no different – same skyline, same city lights – but there was a wide-eyed owl with scraggly feathers perched on the ledge, pecking on the glass. Stunned, Bruce stared confusedly at it for some time before noticing that there was an envelope tied to its leg. Nearly laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of the situation, Bruce decided to play along and fumbled to open the window.

The bird flapped clumsily through the opening and landed on the floor with a thud. It ruffled his feathers and tried to stand again, failing miserably. Bruce had absolutely no idea how to react, but reached down and awkwardly picked up the owl, placing it on the desk against the wall. It hooted in protest, but allowed him to untie the parchment envelope from its leg. Inside was a letter scrawled in very small, neat print:

_Dear Mr. Wayne,_

_On behalf of the British Ministry for Magic, I would request that you come to the address of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, London, on the afternoon of tomorrow, the 10th of October, 2005, so that you may be briefed on your tasks ahead. Please arrive at 6:30 pm sharp. I will meet you there. We very much appreciate your help in retrieving this criminal who has so inconveniently chosen your home city to conceal himself from us, and we hope that we may give you any assistance that we can during the process._

_Until then,_

_Mrs. Hermione Weasley_

_Secretary of the Muggle Artifacts Office_

_Auror, First Class_

_PS.: Please be careful with Errol. He's very old and, as you have probably noticed, not the most agile of creatures. Thank you._

The owl (Errol?) hooted again, drawing Bruce's eyes away from the letter, and flapped out the window, hitting his wing on the way out and spinning into the air before catching a draft and gliding away over the London rooftops.

* * *

Grimmauld Place hadn't been all that hard to find. It was a quiet cobblestone street on the far side of London, away from the eyes of busy downtown and lined with tall residence buildings. Bruce walked along the sidewalk, counting the numbers on the front doors.

_6…8…10…14?_ Bruce stopped in his tracks, looking back and forth between the two doors. Where was number twelve? He checked his watch. 6:18. Looking around for someone he could ask for directions, he spied a homeless man holding a near-empty bourbon bottle further down the sidewalk, and a teenage girl leaning against the fence across the street. He stepped off the curb and walked over to her. Her hands were shoved into the pockets of her fur-lined vest, Avril Lavigne playing loudly in her earbud headphones. Her heavy combat boots gave another three inches of height to her skinny frame.

"Um, excuse me?" he asked. She looked up, pulling one earbud out.

"What'd you say?" she asked.

He was about to ask her for help, but then something occurred to him. "This may seem odd, but…you aren't Hermione Weasley, are you?"

"Uh…no?"

"Ok, never mind," Bruce said. "I was wondering if you could help me."

The girl looked slightly uncomfortable, but nodded.

"Someone told me that they wanted to meet me at 12 Grimmauld Place," Bruce explained.

She shook her head. "That's impossible; there is no Number 12. Never has been. It was some fuck-up when they were building this place. Maybe they meant Number 21?"

"No, they spelled it out."

She shrugged as a car turned onto the street and pulled up to the curb in front of them. "I have to go, that's my boyfriend," she said to Bruce. She climbed into the passenger seat. "Good luck!" she called out the window as they sped off.

6:24.

Bruce figured there was nothing he could do but wait. He returned to the other side of the street and leaned back against the fence of Number Ten.

6:29.

He fidgeted impatiently. _Come ON!_

"You're early, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce turned. A young woman who looked close to Potter's age had appeared on the sidewalk to his right, her arms crossed.

"Miss Weasley?"

"Mrs.," she corrected. "But please, call me Hermione."

"Do all you people marry so young?"

"Only the lucky ones," she replied coolly. Her mouth twitched in a bit of a smile.

"I thought you said to meet you at Number 12," Bruce said.

"And you did."

Bruce frowned. "But Number Twelve doesn't exist," he argued, gesturing towards the space between Ten and Fourteen. He stopped short.

"Shall we?" she asked.

Bruce's jaw dropped slightly in confusion. There _was_ a door there – now. Bruce let his eyes run up and down the house that hadn't been there before. It looked the same as all the others along the street, but it somehow felt darker, older. While the rest of the houses stared vacantly out onto the street, Number Twelve glared down at them distastefully as Hermione pushed through the door, a stunned Bruce following along.

The inside of Number Twelve was dark, dank, musty, and smelled strongly of mothballs. A staircase stretched up to the upper floors, while a hallway curved around it to the left. There was a dull thud as Hermione collided with something a knee-height.

"Oh, bloody _hell!_" she cried. Whatever the thing was, it fell to the ground with a heavy _thunk,_ and a few umbrellas clattered across the hardwood floor. Bruce helped her up, and then from the nearest door down the hallway came a sound like no other he'd ever heard before. An inhuman screeching, shrieking, and spitting echoed throughout the entire building, and people came pouring out of, well, _everywhere._ A white-haired man dashed from further down the hall into the first room, and another man with scars covering half his face followed him. The rest were gathering on the stair landings on every level of the house and shouting at the people down below.

"Can't she keep quiet for at least one straight day?"

"Shut her up!"

"Bloody old hag!"

Meanwhile, the banshee in the other room was screaming, "_MUGGLES! IN THE NOBLE HOUSE OF BLACK! FILTHY MUDBLOODS! HALF-BREEDS! MUGGLE-LOVERS! WRETCHES!_"

"You're the wretch, you bloody hag! Now, SHUT UP!"

"_I WON'T STAND FOR MUGGLES-LOVERS IN MY HOUSE! FILTHY HALF-BREEDS!_"

The noise ended as quickly as it had begun, and the sudden silence was broken only by the sound of a baby crying. The two men who had gone to quiet the creature emerged from the room, the one with white hair out of breath. "I swear, she gets worse every time," he muttered.

"Arthur, is there any way that we can _move_ this bloody thing so that people stop tripping over it?" Hermione asked, pointing to the overturned umbrella stand.

Bruce reached down to upright it, and grimaced as he replaced it by the door. "What exactly is that?" he asked.

"It's a troll leg," Hermione said with disgust. "Horrid, isn't it? The former owners were rather strange."

"Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce looked up. The white-haired man had walked up, and was staring at him incredulously. "Yeah, that's me."

"Excellent! About time we let a Muggle into this house, if for no reason other than to bother Mrs. Black," he said, tossing his head in the direction of the banshee's room. "I'm Arthur. Arthur Weasley," he said with a huge smile as he excitedly and violently shook Bruce's hand. "Would you like a drink?"

"Uh, no thanks, I'm fine."

"Well, come sit in the kitchen, and we'll have supper ready in a few minutes, eh? I hope you didn't eat before you came here, because my Molly is an _excellent_ cook!"

It was then that it occurred to Bruce that Mr. Weasley looked very much like a surprised duck. Deciding to keep that little realization to himself, Bruce followed Hermione and Mr. Weasley to the furthest door down the hall. In contrast with the rest of the house, the kitchen was warm and cheery with much better lighting. A long wooden table ran down the middle, accompanied with benches rather than chairs. A plump old woman was pouring hot water into ten mugs near the stove at one end. Several large pots sat on the stove burners, their contents steaming and bubbling merrily. Sitting next to her was a very dark-skinned, serious-looking man in elaborately colored robes. She looked up and smiled when they entered.

"Hello Arthur, dear," she said. "Hermione. Oh, my!" She set the kettle down and bustled over to Bruce. "You must be Bruce! I'm Molly. It's so _good_ to have you here!"

"Thanks," Bruce smiled at her uncomfortably. The woman was just a tad _too_ jolly.

"Would you like some tea?"

"Uh, sure."

She ushered Bruce over to where the dark man sat, and pushed him down onto the bench, pressing a steaming mug into his hands. As she hurried to get milk, lemon, and sugar out for him, Hermione scooted in across the table and Arthur leaned out the door, bellowing, "All right, look alive! I want everyone down here now to welcome Mr. Wayne! Except you, Ginny, if you want to keep James up there."

There was a thunder of footsteps down the staircase, and people flooded into the kitchen, crowding as they all tried to squeeze onto the benches. Bruce was getting nervous at this point. Several of them grabbed mugs of tea as they passed, and the majority of them had fiery orange hair. He counted fourteen people, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley and Hermione included, plus a chubby baby cradled in the arms of a young redheaded woman. Bruce recognized Potter sitting next to her, his arm draped around her shoulders. A young boy with bubblegum pink hair ran in circles around the table, shrieking as a willowy, fair-skinned blonde girl raced after him.

"_Allez vous_, Victoíre! Come back 'eer!" a French-accented voice ordered.

"Teddy! Stop that now!" Potter's arm lashed out, encircling the boy's waist as he passed, and lifted him into the young man's lap. Teddy whispered something into Potter's ear, and the man removed his glasses with a grin and placed them on the giggling boy's nose.

"All right, quiet down everyone!" Mrs. Weasley called. The clamour finally died down, and she continued. "I suppose that the most logical place to start would be to introduce ourselves, eh? Harry, Hermione, and Arthur you know," she said as each person raised their hand in turn. "There's Bill, Fleur, Victoíre, Charlie, Ronald, Percy, Ginny with baby James, Teddy, George," she paused for a breath and told him that anyone he saw with red hair was a Weasley. "And _this_—" she gestured to the dark man, who gave Bruce a shockingly white-toothed smile. "—is Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister for Magic."

"We welcome you with open arms, Mr. Wayne," Shackebolt said.

"Thank you," was all Bruce could say.

"Are you a Muggle?" Teddy piped up.

"Teddy!" his mother scolded.

"I, uh…" Bruce faltered. "I don't know what a Muggle is."

Mrs. Weasley explained. "It's a wizarding term for someone like yourself. Someone who can't do magic. So yes, you are a Muggle."

"Could I learn?" It occurred to Bruce that this may be another opportunity to gain more knowledge and fighting skills.

She shook her head. "I'm afraid not, dear. Magic can only be performed by those who are born with it in their blood."

Bruce felt jealous, but shrugged it off. So he couldn't do magic, so what? He'd gotten along fine without before.

"Oh!" Molly cried, rushing back to the pots bubbling on the stove. "Percy, be a dear and get plates out for all of us. You too, George."

Two redheaded men, one of which had a pursed mouth and looked like a horse, the other with unhappy lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes, stood and began setting out the plates as Mrs. Weasley followed them and spooned helpings onto each. Bruce had to admit, it smelled divine. The orange-haired man next to him nudged his elbow.

"Hey, could you pass me the salt?"

Bruce handed it to him.

"Thanks, mate," the man said. "I suppose you've forgotten everyone's names by now." Bruce gave an awkward laugh and admitted he had. "Well, my name's Ron," the man replied with a grin. "I'm Harry's brother-in-law and best mate."

"His wife is your sister?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah, that's Ginny. The youngest of the family, and the only girl out of seven."

"Wow," Bruce said, eating a large mouthful of richly flavored beef. He looked around the room, and frowned. "Uh, there's only six of you here. Is one of your brothers absent?" he asked.

Ron paused, taking a long gulp of his tea. "I guess you could say that," he said quietly, not looking at Bruce. "Fred died eight years ago."

"Oh… I'm sorry," Bruce said.

Ron shrugged. "It was for a cause, and he wasn't the only one."

"Can I ask what happened?"

The man nodded, taking another gulp of tea before speaking. "There was a war – largest one in centuries amongst us wizard-folk – and the enemy targeted our school. Not that that would have kept this crowd from fighting, mind you. Anyway, Harry, Hermione, Percy, George, and Fred and I were fighting in one of the corridors together when the wall next to us exploded. We made it out. Fred didn't."

There were a few moments of silent eating, only quiet talking amongst the rest of the people at the table and the clinking of silverware, until Bruce asked, "What was the war for? Who was fighting?"

Ron swallowed the last of his mashed potatoes and answered, "It was the same old power-hungry dictator and his followers against the freedom-lovers routine, mingled with the country's government being arses and not telling anyone the truth. Not really any different than Muggle wars, when you boil it down."

"Sounds like it," Bruce replied. His curiosity was peaked now. "Who was the dictator?"

"Well, his real name was Tom Riddle," Ron explained. "But after his rise to power he was called Lord Voldemort."

"Huh. Sounds eccentric," Bruce said.

Ron laughed. "Back then, most people – myself included, I admit – were so bloody scared of him that they were too afraid to say his name."

"Well, that's something you don't hear every day. What did he do?"

Ron gave Bruce an amused look. "You're keen for details."

"With all due respect, I just found out that magic exists and there's a large amount of people of whose everyday lives it's a major part of, so pardon me if I'm a bit curious."

Ron laughed again. "Spoken like a Muggle."


End file.
